By Stevie Smith Nov 29, 2007, 11:05 GMT
While there is little doubting the worth of the budget XO notebook computer in delivering modern technology to underprivileged children in developing nations, the rugged green and white device’s image is being tarnished somewhat by patent infringement accusations related to its keyboard.
Specifically, Nigeria-based Lagos Analysis Corporation (Lancor) has filed a lawsuit accusing the XO’s creators, the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) foundation, of violating patents relating directly to its multilingual keyboard component and its four shift keys.
"OLPC illegally reverse-engineered the company's patented keyboard, which, with its four-shift keys, allows computers to better handle multiple languages," outlined Lancor CEO Ade Oyegbola regarding the filing.
By way of reaction, the OLPC foundation, which is chaired by MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte, offered that it will not comment directly on the patent accusations before first receiving Lancor’s claim and reviewing it fully.
However, the foundation’s director of finance and operations, Robert Fadel, insisted that OLPC "has the utmost respect for the rights of intellectual property owners," and that: "To OLPC’s knowledge, all the intellectual property used in the XO Laptop is either owned by OLPC or properly licensed."
Lancor’s accusations revolve around its ‘Shift2’ technology, which is used in multilingual keyboards to provide users in Nigeria with access to the likes of accents, symbols and various other diacritical marks during the process of regular keyboard typing.
Filed on November 22 with claims of violation against Lancor’s Nigeria Registered Design Patent #RD8489, the company is confidently seeking to receive significant damages from the infringement while also asking the Federal High Court (Lagos Judicial Division) to prevent OLPC from selling its XO device.
"The willful infringement of our client’s intellectual property is so blatant and self-evident in the OLPC’s XO Laptops," said Solicitor Ade Adedeji, "we will have no problem establishing the facts of our client’s case against OLPC in any court of law."
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